Apocalypse! - Nerd Thunder 3

There is a companion article here which tells the whole story!

Every year for the past three years, the Beard Bunker boys (Charlie, Mark, Maisey and I) go up to Warhammer World in Nottingham and have a really BIG game. This isn't your normal Apocalypse either. Every single model has to be painted, the game needs to have a theme and a narrative scenario and the table needs to be one of the best. Hence Warhammer World. Here, for your delification and delight is the 8,500 point a side first battle of Hellsreach Hive:

As my Blood Angels were combat dropping in on the second turn I had the opportunity to take a team photo of the whole 4000 points of them!

To boost the awesome Warhammer World scenery we brought along the beard bunker Mek's Workshop scenery.

A model's eye view of the business end of a Vindicator tank!

Maisey's White Hands marines awaiting deployment

The centre of the awesome 12'x6' Hellsreach Bridge scenery, the cracked river bed is apparantly made by spreading plaster on muslin and then flexing it to create the Wadi

White Hands assault troops

White Hand deployment, we were playing that the Blood Angels were answering an overrun distress call from the White Hands.

The remaining Red Shirts Imperial Guard huddle in the ruins with the last of the air support

The Amaranthean "Red Shirts" taking position. We were delighted how closely our basing matched the table. Really made the game look awesome.

The Deathskulls amass to destroy the Red Shirts

Go, go Lootafex!

Blood Angels reinforcements arrive, on the wrong side of the bridge!

The table in all its glory, it is huge!

Blood Angel reinforcements hammer down to engage the Bad Moons

Blood Angels terminators valiently - but unfortunately unsuccessfully - attempt to stall the Meganobz

Vehicular carnage was very much the order of the day. We envisioned a pall of thick oily smoke hanging over the table.

A devastating wave of Bad Moon reinforcements thunder into the Blood Angels

What happens when the Imperial Guard meet Orks in Close Combat.

DEATH OR GLORY! Sadly... death. A White Hands Dreadnought is smashed by the Battlewagon.

The killing blow for the marines, 2000 points of extra Speed Freaks rumble on to the board.

Speed Freaks battlewagon smashes through the ruins.

There were lots more photos but those were the best ones for general consumption. Charlie will be writing the battle up as a report for the Beard Bunker so I will leave the details to him! I will be doing a Sights of Warhammer World post soon with pictures of some of the best tables at Warhammer World. Until then:

TTFN.

We're gonna need a bigger strait jacket....

Hey folks, been a manic week here at PVP HQ but I have been able to squeeze in a quick figure, a Death Company Dreadnought:

Remember these lunatics? Well, just as regular Blood Angels can turn crazy and need to be destroyed in the white hot fires of combat so can their Dreadnoughts. Oops. This fellow is one such lunatic, as a result his compassionate bretheren tool him up with lethal close combat weapons and hurl him at the enemy hoping that eventually some of them will take him out and save them the task!

I deliberately kept the paint scheme very simple, I don't intend to use this chap all the time (in truth, there was a dreadnought shaped space in the figure case. I had the spare parts from the Furioso and an old dreadnought lying around and one thing led to another...) so didn't want to spend ages on him. I wanted the red saltires to be the focus of attention and wrapped them around the shoulder plates to help him look his best from any angle. I also refined my black painting method mentioned in the Chaplain article by adding a few drops of black ink to the Badab Black wash to intensify the colour and help avoid the greying effect of the drybrushing. I am really considering a quick black Space Marine army just because this technique is so very fast.

A view that Games Workshop don't show of this kit. I can't understand why?! The detailing on the Magna Grapple is cool! It's got little wheels to guide the cable, cable reels to store the tethers and the grapples themselves are pretty cool too.

Well, that is it for this post, for those keeping track there are only two models left to paint for my 4000 points of Blood Angels, another Sanguinary Priest and the last Drop Pod. I am really going to have to nail down what the next big project for me will be. Might have to do some "gang sized" projects to cool down from the 4000 point paint fest that the Blood Angels have been. Until next time everyone

TTFN

Knights in White Satin...

Or, y'know, Power Armour. Couldn't resist the opportunity for a Moody Blues quote. Today I present the first of two Sanguinary Priests:

These are the holy medics of the Blood Angels. The scientific magicians who perform the transformation of children into the Astartes. Most chapters have their apothecaries but the Blood Angels elevate theirs to the status of priests within the sanguinary cult. White is the mark of the apothecary and creates two problems, first is the fact that white is just the hardest colour to paint and a nightmare to photograph. Thus the photos lack their customary backdrop (just try cutting the model out of the image in Photoshop if you are wondering why) but at least the black cloth backdrop shows him off.

My method for painting white has only just been perfected (almost) with this figure. It is enormously labour intensive but the only way I have found to achieve a nice clean white. It starts with a couple of thin layers of Astronomicon Grey to establish a smooth base coat. Once dry it is shaded with a thinned Codex Grey in the recesses. Highlights are built up in layers starting with a 4:1 mix of Astronomicon Grey and Skull White and then built up with increasing amounts of white over 5 or 6 layers. Finally ten or so layers of very thin white are applied to achieve a clean finish. So, yeah, twenty or so layers of paint to achieve a clean shaded white. Like I said; labour intensive.

The stone crux terminatus was painted following the guide in White Dwarf for the Space Hullk terminators. The Grey Knight Narthecium was lovely to paint, the screens and blood vial look really nice.

I painted his face a little darker than usual to better contrast the white. The lenses are painted with my usual lens mix of Fenris Grey shaded and highlighted and then gloss varnished. The red shoulder pads link the Sanguinary Priest thematically to the army and also to the Terminator Squad that he will be joining.

 There is another Sanguinary Priest in the offing (this one with a jump pack) but he will be a reward for finishing the next Drop Pod. Till next time then:

TTFN

Drop Pods (at last!)

Greetings all. Given my usual pace at painting vehicles I confidently predicted - not so long ago - that I would have three drop pods painted and ready to go in no time. A hollow laugh rings around the room... a week later, I have one drop pod finished. So here it is!

I added a spare Baal Predator Icon to the outside to give it a bit more Blood Angel character. Painting started with layers of Tin Bitz, Boltgun Metal and Chainmail applied followed by Badab Black. Over this went the first couple of layers of my Blood Angels red scheme. I stopped at Blood Red though as the heavy weathering would cover all the top level highlighting.

The interior was handled in the same way with Iyanden Darksun and Black hazard lines run down the internal door surfaces. These are tedious but fairly easy for Drop Pods, just measure and mark off half centimetre check marks all along both sides of the stripe. Connect them diagonally with a thin brush and black paint, fill in alternating stripes and you are done. A radar display in the centre of the column finished off the look.

Lastly came heavy weathering to indicate the drop pods mode of entry to the battlefield (for those that don't know a drop pod is kind of like the old Apollo and Soyuz re-entry capsules from the 70's. A heat resistant capsule that plummets out of orbit and then uses retro jets to slow down the capsule before impact). All the weathering was achieved by damp overbrushing in streaks starting at the base and pulling upwards. Graveyard Earth was liberally applied followed by Bestial Brown, Scorched Brown and Chaos Black in ever decreasing amounts. The same colours were stippled on the base to indicate the burning. I debated making the interior dirty but then decided that the crew would have sealed them in on the orbiting starship - so clean - and then the impact would have billowed the dust outward rather than in. Clean it is then!

Thankfully the remaining two drop pods have no interior fixings as they have been assembled to be dreadnought pods. Much simpler to paint. I hope!

TTFN

Come with us if you want to live...

Welcome one and all to another Blood Angels update, this time (as the slightly oblique title references) it is the turn of the Terminators:

These are the real badasses of the Space Marines, veterans all and clad in armour that makes normal power armour look a touch wimpy. I have always loved terminators, mainly because of the face:

There is just something about that mask that I adore. Can't pin it down really. Combine that with the existance of Forgeworld's awesome modelled Blood Angel shoulder pads and I couldn't really say no. I went to town on the red on these chaps, even going back and rehighlighting key areas to draw attention to the face. Aside from this the main areas that I had fun with were those shoulder pads, check them out:

The detail is so delicate and crisp, oh and yes, that is the vitruvian man on the cloth. Might have gotten a touch excited.

One of the advantages of using resin for these "aftermarket" parts is there is no undercut problem. The molds are flexible and so allow nice organic details like the scroll above to be cast cleanly.

There are also some nods to classic space marine iconography (I have just noticed that elbow joint, argh, cleanup on aisle three!) with things like that gold marksman's badge hanging from the shoulder. Oh and this fellow needs it too because he is toting:

That! The assault cannon is a charmingly lunatic weapon for the terminators, a super minigun that any normal warrior would fly through a wall if they tried to fire it. Only the bulk of the terminator armour grants this chap the ability to fire such a colossal firearm.

One other really nice thing about those pads is the small amounts of battle damage that just give them a feeling of age and wear. I decided to paint these as though they were old damage and repainted. By contrast:

The powerfists needed to feel recently scarred and battered. These are weapons that are designed to punch through tank armour plating so paint is pretty much on a hiding to nothing. I wanted the fists to look like they had been looked after but the first combat of the battle had torn them up again.

Well that is it for today. Just 2 land speeders, 2 sanguinary priests and three half-painted drop pods stand between me and 4000 points of Blood Angels. Very excited. Until next time:

TTFN

The Once and Future Captains...

Yaay for enigmatic titles! This post sees the completion of all available commanders for the third company of the Blood Angels. First, an unfortunate fall in the form of the Death Company Captain Tycho - or "Psycho" Tycho as he will henceforth be known:

For those who aren't familiar with the backstory of this figure: Captain Tycho is one of the few "historical" special characters as he has been dead in the current storyline for a century or so. He was killed during the third war for Armageddon against his old hated foes, the Orks. During this conflict he finally succumbed to the rage and hate that had built up in his heart following his disfigurement at the hands of an Ork Weirdboy. Tycho fell to the Black Rage and with a heavy heart his company inducted him into the Death Company, there to find death by the blades of his enemies rather than the slow slide into homicidal madness. Once you are inducted into the Death Company, your brothers repaint your armour in funereal Black and daub red saltires indicating the wounds that Sanguinius suffered in his fatal duel with Warmaster Horus.

Whilst the armour was not too terribly exciting, see the chaplain entry for details on how to achieve the subtle black armour I wanted his face to be very different to the original paint job, here it is for comparison:

This paint job represents early middle age for Erasmus Tycho, his skin is still ruddy and his hair a rich red-brown. Compare this with his final hours:

I wanted him to look, old, ill, disturbed. Old was handled by using a fair amount of Fortress Grey in the final highlights on the skin and strategically in the hair to give him patchy greying hair. Ill was achieved by using very pale mixes of colour on the skin and sucking any livid colour from his flesh. Finally disturbed was indicated by his unkempt appearance (stubble) and the dark purple-black shading around the eyes. All in all it is a much different man in the second picture to the first. Even the gold was painted a more aged hue, less polished to indicate the passage of time. So with the great Captain Tycho dead who took over? A quick squint at the Codex indicates that the current Captain of the Third is Machiavi who has brought the nickname "Ironhelms" to the third companies honour roll. So who is this chap?

Well, the codex is silent on that question so we make up our own backstory! I came up with Machiavi being Tycho's first sergeant all the way through the Armageddon campaigns, a confidant and advisor. Upon Tycho's death a grief-stricken Machiavi assumed command of the Third as senior NCO. Refusing all rights of personal heraldry he stripped the paint from his helm and declared that the iron helm of a tactical Space Marine would be his only mark. Since then he has been known as Ironhelm and the nickname has stuck with his company. With this in mind painting was easy! The model is a limited edition Space Marine Veteran Sergeant that I think was released for the 25th anniversary celebrations but someone with a better memory can correct me. I have wanted an excuse to use this model for some little while and Machiavi gave me that opportunity.

I wanted the bare helm to be the focal point of the miniature so lavished some attention on it to gain the most convincing iron texture that I could. First came a base coat of Boltgun Metal. This was highlighted sparingly with Chainmail. Next came a thin wash of Vermin Brown mostly in the recesses. Once this was fully dry a very thin wash of Dark Flesh was also applied to the recesses. Astute long term readers will recognise this as a reversal of my usual method for painting rust. I wanted tarnished rather than corroded here. Once the Dark Flesh was dry a wash of Badab Black and then Devlan Mud helped to deepen the colours and provide the darkest shading. Finally I gave the helm a light drybrush of Boltgun to bring out the metallic colour once more. Do check out the picture in enlarged form. It is one of the few helmets that I am totally happy with having expanded to 1000 pixels tall!

So I now have the option to field the past, present and future of the Chapter depending on my whims (and whether special characters are being used):

It has been an interesting project to do this as not many characters have multiple paint schemes or indeed are dead! Hope you like them too. Now to decide whether Terminators, Sanguinary Priests, Land Speeders or those accursed Drop Pods get my attention next! Until next time,

TTFN

Blood Angels Chaplain and the last tactical squad...

Greetings all, we are getting very close now. Just thirteen models stand between me and 4000 points of lunatic Blood Angel goodness. Here are the latest offerings, first the 3rd Company Chaplain:

For anyone considering buying a chaplain, get this guy. He is just a lovely sculpt, the skull especially and I suspect that it will look even better in Finecast! The black armour is the part that challenges most people and I am going to let you all in on a Pirate Viking painting secret. Drybrushing is your friend. Seriously. It doesn't always work, especially on Space marine armour, but for black it is tough to beat. This gentleman had multiple carefully drybrushes layers (and real drybrushing, the brush cannot be damp at all) using a large drybrush that is normally used for tanks. The layers went something like: Adeptus Battlegrey and Chaos Black; Adeptus Battlegrey; Adeptus Battlegrey and Codex Grey; Codex Grey. Each layer is progressively lighter than the last. Once you are finished he will look like he is made of concrete. Trust the Pirate Viking and continue to the next stage. Paint in all the metalwork with chainmail. Wait for that to dry (about a cup of tea duration, conveniant huh?) and then hit him with two coats of Badab Black, waiting for the first to dry before applying the second. This looks so effective that I am actively considering a black Space Marine army (Black Templars perhaps) as a side project because the effect is so very, very fast to complete.

The bone is Khemri Brown, shaded down with Devlan Mud and then highlighted through many thin layers of Khemri Brown mixed with increasing amounts of Bleached Bone until pure Bleached Bone is reached. A few final highlights of Bone and White finished the effect. The last step is a very, very thin glaze of bone and white highlight mix with a thin layer of satin varnish over the top to give a polished finish.

Continuing a theme, here are some more Blood Angels! Surprised huh? This is the 3rd companies 4th Tactical Squad and the last that I will be painting for this project. These gents are designed to drop pod down into the heart of the enemy in support of the two dreadnoughts and capture enemy held objectives. Hence they are armed with short range but lethal melta weaponry.

Having finally run out of Sanguinary Guard swords to use on Sergeants I needed an alternative power sword. Something of a similar length to the other blades but fancy enough to be a Blood Angels weapon. Enter an Empire Wizard's sword from the fantasy range, combining this with the grip and pommel from the Command Squad relic blade was child's play and generated the right effect. And while we are talking conversion:

Given that these guys are the closest thing to an assaulting Tactical Squad that you are going to get I wanted a marine throwing a grenade among their number. By tilting the torso to the side I gave him the impression he was leaning into the throw. The left arm needed a bit of chopping and repositioning to hold the boltgun in a believable way but I think the overall effect was worth it.

Well, that's all folks for today, as mentioned earlier, only 13 models remain unfinished and five of them are half done. The planner below shows what is still to do. All manner of exciting!

TTFN